


Half-life

by zeldadestry



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-19
Updated: 2005-09-19
Packaged: 2017-10-10 07:08:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It feels better to have a beating heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half-life

It's Brit-pop night at the Bronze, and the chance to get drunk and listen to the Smiths has enough appeal to lure Spike from his crypt. He's sitting, by himself in the corner, drinking vodka and staring at a tall redhead who's staring back as she smokes. She's young. He can tell by the smoothness of her skin, but mostly he sees it in her eyes.

As the next song starts, energy prickles his skin and he is filled with memory. Ian Curtis. Joy Division. Love will tear us apart.

He could never get Dru to care about this music. Didn't matter. He had seen them, all the great ones, had seen them all. Ian Curtis had the death wish on his face. Not a surprise when he forced the issue and ended his own life. Regret, though, it was a waste. Almost wished someone had turned him. But would that have made it any better?

The smoking girl shares that haunted, haunting, expression. Too much passion, yeah, there is such a thing. Makes you want what you can't have. Makes you want what doesn't exist. Confuses you and drags you down and makes you think you want to die, eventually. Dru in the alley.

What made him think Dru could offer something different? You don't get anything as a vamp that a human can't get. It just feels stronger. It's a violence of the senses. His eyes, which had lowered to his ageless hands gripping his drink, rise again. She is still watching, her lips slightly parted. He can see her future before her. It doesn't have to be a vamp. It could be Hepatitis from a dirty needle or an unstable lover who becomes violent one night; it could be her own doing, her own slim fingers placing pill after pill after pill on her tongue. How would he have had her, back then? The pulsing blood of her veins or the slick heat of her cunt? Both, probably. No need to choose.

He knows the exact sequence of the story. Fucking first, of course. Once she is spent, that's when he drinks, taking her from behind. At first she'll be relieved as the sensation washes over her, because it will be the most intense feeling she has yet experienced, incredible pleasure and pain. She will believe she's found everything she needs. But then, at some point, the pain will grow and she will realize she is being drained. The horror will strike her, the horror of her life being stolen, of approaching nothingness, and she will struggle against it with everything she has left. The strangeness of it is that the more they seem to want it at first, the more they fight against it in the end. When he is almost finished, there will be the surrender, the body will slump against him, its heat tempered. Her eyes will be calm then, the devastation past, her soul returned to the void.

Shit. There was no reason to ever think about it before. Back then, when he actually did it, the senses were habitually saturated. His desires ran riot and there was no room for anything else. But now, now only pussy and alcohol can give any relief for his want of anarchy. He looks at her again, spreads his legs a little wider and beckons to her with his finger.

They dance and she dances well, smoothly circling the beat. He keeps a hand on her hip, enjoying the undulations. This girl has no idea of what he is. She's aching for him, and yet if he took her to bed, if she felt his cold, still body pressed against her in the early morning, as the light began to peer into her room, she would be horrified. Warm blood seeks warm blood. This girl, right here, with the too bright red hair and the thick smoky eyeliner, she wants some sort of uber-life. She doesn't want to settle for convention, restraint. She wants passion, crazy fucking passion no matter the cost. She thinks she's found a kindred spirit in him. Pathetic.

This girl, no, she hasn't figured it out yet. But the moment she does, the moment she leans her head against his still chest and realizes there's no life there, she will be repulsed. Breath seeks breath. She will back away, shocked. How could someone who looked so full of fire be empty? He is nothing but the afterimage of how much he wanted in life. That is what animates his corpse. She will realize, tonight, after she has escaped from him, how meaningless desire is. She already possesses that which makes life worth living.

Something will turn over inside her, she will be less desperate. It feels better to have a beating heart. It is better, even if she's only waiting in line at the supermarket or the DMV, studying for classes that bore her, sleeping with a man she doesn't really love. The vulgar necessities of life will be transformed. She will pause, just to enjoy the throb of her pulse. She will know, even when life seems its most empty, that simply to be alive, to inhale and exhale, is beauty. This is what their dance will show her.

The song ends and, for a moment, he takes her warm hand which flutters with nerves into his own. He raises it to his mouth and kisses her wrist, runs his cold tongue up the vein of her forearm. He looks her in the eye. He sees it all, just as he has predicted: lust, want, devotion, confusion, revulsion, terror. Each emotion tumbles over the one that has preceded it, eclipsing her with increasing power. Her eyes widen and her jaw drops, she yanks her hand away from him and he does not fight to keep his hold on her. She takes a step back, still watching him, unbelieving, and then turns and struggles to move quickly through the crowd. She is desperate to put as much space as she can between herself and his hideous half-life. It's as it should be.

He turns in the other direction, heads back to the bar and orders a whiskey. He'll consider this his good deed for the day, like he's a fucking boy scout.

The living can not outrun change. They hate it, fear it, and try to escape it. They die, regardless. The undead can not change; they make the most of their stagnation and then they too disappear.


End file.
